


The Unwanted Gift

by Serriya (Keolah)



Series: Cursebreaker Saga [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Drama, Drow, Gen, Original Universe, Suicide, Terminal Illnesses, Tragedy, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-01-01
Updated: 1998-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young human woman seeks a cure for her father's illness, but her path leads her across the lands of the drow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unwanted Gift

Alaran Grey stood upon a bridge two stories above Dana Creek, one of the countless water-streets that crisscrossed Anjillia. She had a dilemma. Her father, a wealthy merchant in Ranad, was dying, and all his money couldn't save him. Begging the Ranadite clerics for a cure, Alaran was directed to Anjillia. Alaran, desperate to save her father from this slow, wasting disease, began the long journey. She travelled westward and soon came to the great city of Anjillia. Never before had she seen a place more beautiful, but in her dreams. Truly the city must have been blessed by gods. She asked the Anjillian clerics for a cure, but she learned that they could not cure him. She did, however, learn that the elves in the realm of Tirist might know a way.

With anticipation, she climbed down to Dana Creek an asked a passing gardener how she might reach Tirist and its elves.

"I don't know about no elves," drawled the farmer. "But to get into Tirist you gotta go through the dwarven realm of Grath. Their mountains are between there and here. Or you could try going around the mountains, but the north way has the trolls and ogres. The south just has a bunch of dark elves. They're okay if you don't mess with 'em. If you go that way, get a swift mount and gallop across at dawn. By dark, you should be out of the drows' territory."

"Is there no other way to Tirist?" she asked.

"Not unless you plan on moving Sedder's Chasm."

"Thank you. You have been very helpful," she handed him some coins.

"No problem, miss," he smiled a toothless grin, pocketing the coins. "No problem at all."

So Alaran proceeded up the Misty River, following it to its source. The north route was out of the question, of course. The trolls and ogres would simply catch her and eat her, perhaps bothering to kill her first. The dwarves were not on the best of terms with the surface-dwellers, and just plain didn't like elves. Dark elves they tolerated--barely. The truth was that the drows' magic was stronger than their own, so they concluded that discretion was the better part of valor. They left the drows alone and the drows left them alone.

Alaran briefly considered meeting either the dwarves or the elves, but reached the conclusion that it would be stupid. She could do as the gardener suggested and gallop across the drows' land, but her estimates told her that she wouldn't make it in time and only succeed in irritating the elves. That, needless to say, was not a smart thing to do.

She could sneak across, staying on the border between Grath and Drowland. If she played it right, any dwarves that saw her would think she was an elf, and any drows would take her for a dwarf. Risky, she concluded. Very, very risky. She would have to go at night and hide during the day. Finally she decided that there was no other way.

She packed her horse and lead it into the rocky terrain, covering her face with a black hood. Both the drows and sometimes the dwarves wore black, so that would support her disguise. Muttering a prayer to whichever god might be listening, Alaran plunged forward.

It was late into the night when they found her. In over her head, she realized that trying to hide would only provoke them. "Yes, who is it?" she called out in Common, since she didn't know elven, trying to imitate the voice of someone who had every right to be where she was.

"Halt!" called an elven voice, speaking Common. "Who goes there?"

"It is only I, Alaran," she told them, still unable to see more than vague shadows. Luckily, her name sounded elvish enough.

"What are you doing so close to the border, Alaran?" asked the voice. "Our relationship with the dwarves is bad enough. The last thing we need is a bunch of stump-folk coming along with axes just high enough to chop our--"

He stopped in mid sentence, remembering that he was in the presence of a lady.

"I--I lost my way," she lied.

The drow came closer. "Where are you from, Alaran?"

"South," she told him, pointing west.

"You must have gotten your directions turned around," the dark elf told her. "South is that way."

"Dear me," she murmured. "Thank you so much, kind sir. I surely would have wandered forever without you." She turned southwest and started walking.

"Where are you going?" he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder to gently stop her from walking off.

"Home," Alaran told him.

Suddenly the language struck him. "Why aren't you speaking elven?"

"I--I thought you might have been humans at first." It was true--sort of. But the elf was on his guard now.

" _Shi gai pesh sa-eleth_?" asked the drow suspiciously.

"I--I--I--" she stuttered, unable to understand the language.

The drow snarled, " _Gai pesh tur sa-eleth!_ " He shouted to his fellows, " _Sanul!_ " The dark elf ripped off her hood. "You are no elf, woman. You are human!" He spat on her feet. "To Chasm's Edge, _no-meneshon_. We've caught ourselves a sneaking _kathur_."

The other two dark elves each took one of Alaran's arms. They led her down the steep slope and followed the Dark River. There was a trio of horses. The first drow, obviously the leader, threw her onto her own horse and tied her horse to his. Then they set off swiftly to the town of Chasm's Edge, whose location was self-explanetory. Southward, well toward dawn, they rode. It was nearly daybreak when they reached the underground town.

"We found a kathur on the northern border, denar," the elvish scout told the drow leader, thrusting Alaran forward. "Says her name's Alaran."

"Where are you from, Alaran?" asked the denar.

A rapid train of thought caused Alaran to lie. Anjillia was sacred to Keolah, and the drows worshipped Keolah. "I'm from Anjillia," she told him.

"Why were you on the border between Drowland and Grath?" demanded the elven leader.

"I'm looking for a cure for my sick father," she said truthfully. "I was told to go to Tirist."

"Tirist!" spat the denar. "Tihiro's elves live there. Were you going to Stone Crossings?"

"I--I know nothing of Stone Crossings."

The drow pointed almost patiently to a map that completely covering one of the room's three walls. A symbol that looked like a cluster of rocks lit up. "That is Stone Crossings, the first city west of Grath."

"I am looking for help for my father," she reiterated. "If it can be found at Stone Crossings, I will go there. If they can tell me where I can find help, I will go there. If not, I will not go there."

"Describe your father's illness. I dabble in healing myself, since many of the spells are life-draining ones as well as life-giving."

Alaran described her father's disease.

"I know of this sickness," the dark elf told her. "I have inflicted it, but I was not responsible in this instance. However, I recall there was a drow on Witch River who could cure anything. She usually preferred not to do so until the last minute, but she loved extending suffering. You could ask her."

"Then you'll let me go?"

"First I want to show you something. How old are you?"

"Seventeen," she replied automatically, without thinking the question odd at first.

"Still a child, even by human standards. I am not like other drow may be. I do not kill children."

He strode out of the room, Alaran and the scout closely following. Before long, they reached a balcony overlooking the misty abyss. "That is Sedder's Chasm. The Dark River flows into it, from that waterfall. Down there, it is so hot that the liquid water vaporizes and rises into the air as hot mist. That is why there is always a storm raging above Chasm's Edge." A lightning bolt punctuated his words. "Remember this, little human. Any time we wish, any drow may call upon the powers of this storm."

The dark elf thrust a hot ring onto her right ring finger, nearly causing her to squeal in pain. Then the denar gestured to the scouts, who returned her to the surface. Once in the upper world again, she instantly fell asleep.

Upon waking, Alaran found her horse near her. She faced a new decision: continue on to Tirist, or seek out the drow woman on Witch River. Deciding upon the latter, she set her steed in a return to Anjillia.

Once outside the dark elves' territory, Alaran examined the ring. It was wrought of silver and set with an onyx stone. When she tried to remove it, the ring only tightened its grip on her and grew hot. Finally she gave up the effort and the ring cooled off again. It appeared that she and the ring were stuck together for a while yet.

After she left Anjillia and crossed the River of Tea Leaves, she left behind the two places where Keolah held supreme reign and entered a place of rivers and forests, where Dana and Arsathia commanded all that happened, and there was twenty miles between her and the mouth of Witch River, and forty miles of river that this lone drow might be hidden on.

Silently she trudged through the vast wilderness, careful not to use more of her supplies than she absolutely had to. To her surprise, she was able to identify some edible plants along the way. Once she thought she saw a unicorn, but it was gone in the wink of an eye. Unicorns were such shy creatures.

Alaran reached the confluence of Witch River and the Field River. She found a footbridge in fairly good repair and crossed, setting her horse free. It would fare well in this lush region. Horses in Doomreign were half wild anyway.

"Drow?" Alaran called, hiking upstream. After about an hour, she called, "Drow?" Continuing upstream, she called, "Drow?" again, and this time one promptly appeared.

" _Gey beshesh za_ ," said the dark elf. "Wait a minute, you're no drow!"

"I was looking for a woman on Witch River," Alaran told him. "The denar of Chasm's Edge told me I would find her here." She was extremely flustered that she had almost understood his words. She knew the gist of what he had said when he spoke elven, that he was only greeting her.

The dark elf looked down and saw her ring, and his whole attitude changed. "Come with me," he told her, leading her along a trail winding further upstream.

Soon they arrived at another drow city, called Witch River, after the river it was on. "Don't do anything precipitous, kathur," the dark elf told her. This time she was eerily aware that the word referred to her race, human, and meant distinctly that she was not welcome because she did not serve Keolah.

"My father is ill and dying and--"

"Silence, _kathur_!" the drow ordered.

Alaran snapped her mouth shut. When she tried to speak again, she found that she was unable to. In fact, it wrenched her body so much when she tried that eventually she just gave up and did not speak.

"Come this way," the dark elf commanded. He took her to one of the rough stone building-caverns that made up Witch River. "The denar wishes to speak with you."

The human girl understood the word to mean the person who ruled Witch River. She was terrified at her uncanny knowledge of this language, but she didn't say a word about it. Actually she couldn't say a word at all.

"Human," the denar addressed her. Alaran did a double take. The word he had said was _kathur_. "What is the reason you have come here, girl?"

Now Alaran was fear-stricken. He had spoken in pure elven, but she had understood it as well as she understood her own language. Steeling herself against her terror, she replied in the same language almost without thinking. "My father is ill and dying. I am seeking a cure for him so that he may live many happy years to come, and because I love him."

"He can be cured, sister," he told her. "But you must make a sacrifice yourself."

"What do you mean? What kind of sacrifice?"

"You must ask Keolah herself to spare your father."

Alaran protested, "But my father worships Cheryl!"

"Not if he wishes to live. You have chosen this course. Are you willing to follow it through and become a drow in order to save your beloved father?"

"Become a drow--"

"That ring you are wearing is turning you into one of us, sister," the dark elf told her. "Otherwise you would not be able to understand and speak this language, which all elves can speak, and few non-elves can ever learn."

"I don't think I comprehend your meaning," Alaran told him honestly.

"Probably not," he admitted. "But go now to your father, and remember what I have told you, sister."

Eager to be gone from that place, Alaran left Witch River and headed directly southeast toward Ranad. She located a wild horse and rode it as far as Iridala Creek, where she let it go again. A second wild horse took her the remainder of the way to the merchants' city on the River of Doom.

She rushed to her home. "Father! Father!" she called.

"Daughter," the man moaned feebly, his breathing wheezy. "No. No. You are not my daughter. You are a filthy dark elf! Be gone, foul creature!"

"Father, it is I, Alaran Grey, returned from my quest to save you from this terrible illness! Look, father. Look at this necklace. You gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday."

"Alaran," the merchant groaned. "It cannot be. What has happened to you?"

Frightened by her father's reaction, she attempted to remove the drowring again. This time it slipped off her finger easily. She was freed from the terrible spell, but it was already too late. A look in the mirror showed black hair, black eyes, and pointed ears. Alaran had become a dark elf.

"Mighty Keolah," she murmured. "I beg of you, cure my dear father of his illness. If he dies of this, I too will die inside. Please be merciful, O Keolah. It is the one and only thing I will ever ask of you."

She turned to her father, and saw him encompassed in a pale greenish glow. His breathing eased, and his strength returned.

"What is this? My illness is cured?"

"Yes, father. Keolah has cured your illness."

"No!" shouted the merchant. "I will take no healing of Keolah! You, Alaran, are no longer my daughter!" He leaped up and strode to the window, and, before Alaran could stop him, he jumped.

"Father!" she cried, racing to the window. But it was too late. Her father was dead. "No. No." Alaran slipped down to the floor and wept shamelessly.


End file.
